A book for people who hate the very idea of self-promotion

Self-promotion and advertising are my favorite topics. How it comes together to finally get me interested or impressed. How to assist my loved ones and friends with growing insights from continuous observations.

Not so for Austin Kleon, he hates talking about self-promotion and my loved ones and most friends abhor the thought of it as well.

Kleon has written the book for y’all who think self-promotion sucks.

“Creativity is not a talent. It’s a way of operating.” says John Cleese in the preface.

Respect must be earned. Crap says textile entrepreneur, Sina Trinkwalder, from Augsburg in Germany, who has earned several honors for her innovative denim operations with hires who won’t get a job anywhere else. How exactly this is meant by Trinkwalder, I can’t tell you right now. Perhaps it is as if everyone needed permission to be in this world. A fitness acknowledgement. That of course is crap, a myth of similar persistence as a silent fart in a tight elevator cabin.

Nobody with an European, secure, unlimited work contract will come out from covering. Remain zipped, don’t say a word – anything you say will eventually be held against you.

It is one successful way of operating.

For your convenience, there is a new way of operating.

Fraternising with institutions and authorities of your trade is no longer the doctor’s only prescription nor is it the only game in town with a given topic.

„Show Your Work”

Comedian Steve Martin famously dodges these questions with the advice, “Be so good they can’t ignore you. Of little help, now that you are asking for easy to follow instructions, which is why I am pointing at the book and where to get it.

Almost all of the people, Austin is looking up to and trying to steal from today, regardless of their profession, have built sharing into their routine. These people aren’t smoozhing at cocktail parties; they are to busy for that. They’re cranking away in their studios, their laboratiories, or their cubicles, but instand of maintianing absolute secrecy and hoarding their work, they’re open about what they’re working on, and they’re constantly posting bits and pieces of their work, their ideas, and what they’re learning online.

Instead wasting their time “networking,”they’re taking advantage of the network

What I am asking my loved ones and friends, is to please consider Austin Kleon’s insights and eventually accept this new way of operating as good fun of doing what you used to hate most.

It has often been said, that history is written by the victors. Come now and embrace the new way of operating – as the victor, who is writing his own chronicle in real time. To the victor go the spoils.